Urban bluebottle
The urban bluebottle is a big buzzing fly with a shiny blue-grey body. Look closely and you will see bright orange cheeks on its face. It is happy in towns and cities and even flies about in cool weather.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Urban bluebottle compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
One mother fly can lay up to 300 eggs.
In warm weather it can grow from egg to grown-up fly in about 18 days.
It can fly in colder weather than most of its cousins, so you often see it in spring and autumn.
Scientists who help the police study this fly, because it always arrives on a schedule they can count.
It travels to new countries by hiding on ships and planes.
Most asked questions about Urban bluebottle
?Do bluebottles bite?
No. The bluebottle cannot bite or sting you.
?Why is it called a bluebottle?
Because its body is a shiny metallic blue, like a blue glass bottle.
?How big is a bluebottle fly?
It is about 10 to 11 millimetres long, bigger than a house fly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Calliphora vicina
- Named by
- Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Calliphoridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Calliphoridae
- Lives on
- Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Blue bottle fly, Blow fly
Where the facts come from
- Calliphora vicina (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by ื (Aleph). CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
Housefly
New World screwworm fly
Lovebug
Tsetse fly
Common fruit fly
Asian tiger mosquito
Khapra beetle
Brown dog tick
Guinea paper wasp
Australian hornet
Eastern subterranean termite
Longhorn crazy ant